


Of the Sweet and Hard Love Which Binds Us

by Siria



Series: Nantucket AU [73]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-11-08
Updated: 2007-11-08
Packaged: 2017-10-03 19:49:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Siria/pseuds/Siria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rodney's learning to expect the way John kisses him each morning.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of the Sweet and Hard Love Which Binds Us

**Author's Note:**

> Written for tx_tart, who wanted five kisses. With thanks to Trin for doing battle with my purple prose. Title and other fragments [taken from Pablo Neruda](http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/and-because-love-battles/)

_i. this danger is danger of love, of complete love for all life_

Rodney's learning to expect the way John kisses him each morning. No matter if he's asleep, or drowsing, or slowly waking already, John will brush a kiss against his forehead, a kind of gentle recall to the world that Rodney's never had before. It's always a brief kiss, close-mouthed and chaste, warm lips and the hint of stubble, a touch that vanishes when John begins the task of untwining long, tangled limbs, of pulling on a pair of boxers selected haphazardly from the floor, of throwing back the curtains to let in the light. Rodney's learning that maybe this is the best time to look at John—at the spare, clean line of his back in the grey dawn, at the curve of his mouth, still soft and unfocused from sleep—when he's lying there in sheets still tumbled and tossed from their bodies. Rodney's learning that maybe this is the best time to stand up, cross over to John, pull him close and kiss him back, open and wanting—because this scares the hell out of Rodney, the thoughts of the two of them filling up this little wooden house for the rest of their lives—but John kisses him awake each morning like he wants him, and Rodney can't do anything but want him back.

_ii. and because love battles_

The first time they'd fought—really fought, not Rodney snapping from tiredness, or John snarking because Rodney forgot to pick up milk on his way home yet again, or a half-silly, half-serious spat while watching a hockey game on TV—Rodney had yelled loud enough that Cash'd run to the back door, whining and scratching to be let out, to be let away. Rodney had yelled, but John hadn't; he'd just walked over to the door, thin-lipped and silent, and let himself out with the dog. "Where the hell do you think you're going? John?"—but the door had closed quietly behind them, leaving Rodney sitting by himself in the middle of their suddenly silent kitchen, mug of coffee cooling at his elbow and a knot of unexpected misery forming in his gut. "Fuck," he'd said to himself, knowing he'd get no answer from a house that was now too large around him, "_Fuck_."

The first time they made up, Rodney said too much, eyes wide and palms stretched wider. The first time they made up, John said nothing at all; just cupped Rodney's face in his big hands and kissed him, strangely slow and solemn. When he pulled away, Rodney closed his eyes and whispered "I'm sorry", meaning it completely; and John said "Shhh", and kissed him again.

_iii. made of light and bread and shadow I expected you, and like this I need you_

Rodney hadn't spent much time suffering through the hell that was an undergraduate degree. His genius was obvious enough that he'd been fast-tracked through parts of it, tested out of others, and he was writing his first Master's thesis by the time most of his peers were panicking at the thought of midterms and trying to remember where exactly the library was. His supervisor—a grim-faced defector from the USSR with a chin as pointed as her manner—had seen to all that, but only on the condition that he fulfilled all his required classes. Absolutely stupid requirements—Rodney had made it perfectly clear to her what he'd thought of them—but he sat through Conversational French with something approaching grace, and only rarely broke into muttered Québecois insults, and he rolled his eyes nowhere near as much as he _should_ have in the Intro to Anthropology class.

"That lecturer was such a moron," he tells John when they're slumped on the couch one evening, curled around each other and their respective bottles of beer. They're both tired, the fire in the grate lulling them both closer to sleep, and Rodney supposes idly that that's what's got them as close to trading reminiscences as either of them get. "I mean, granted, anthropology, so that's a given. But who sets term papers on, on what you think would qualify as the primary needs for you and your social group in the aftermath of a zombie apocalypse?"

"Zombies?" John breathes. "_Awesome_."

"He got fired a little bit later," Rodney admits. "He was a touch..." He trails off and circles one finger near his forehead. "You know."

"Anthropological?" John says dryly.

"Exactly," Rodney says, but he's mellow enough on Sam Adams that there's no snap in his voice.

John smiles, and subsides next to him; just at the edge of his hearing, Rodney can tell that John's humming a little, deep in his throat, like he always does when he's content. There's silence in the living room for a minute, both of them staring at the open fire, before John mumbles "So what's on y'list now?"

"Hmm?" Rodney says.

"Hordes of zombies shuffling down Cliff Road," John says, gesturing towards the window with his bottle, "You in here. What'd y'need for the end of the world?"

Rodney shifts to look at him, and there are half a dozen smart comments he could make, poised right there on the tip of his tongue, three or four ways he could make John regret ever asking that question by launching into a variation of the survival kit he always keeps meaning to lay in in case of fire or flood or the brain-eating undead. But John's eyes are bright, laughter lines crinkled up with the force of his smile, and Rodney's breath catches in his throat, turns his voice to something strange when he chokes out "Just—you, John, I—" He leans in to kiss John with the ease born of long practise, with months and months spent learning how a nip at the full curve of John's lower lip will make him shiver, how a hint of tongue at the right corner of John's mouth will make him moan. He presses in closer, bottle falling unheeded to the floor as he bears John back down onto the couch with his weight; closes his eyes and threads his fingers through the dark, raw silk of John's hair and "God," he moans as he kisses him, _Jesus_ he thinks, when did this become necessary?

_iv. your big eyes, as when I kiss them, will then close with pride, into double pride, love_

The pen falls from his suddenly lax fingers when it hits him—two months of frustration and half an hour's absorbed staring out the window at the summer sky when it all falls into place in his head. A rearrangement, a recognition, a resolution, and there's the crux of it unfolding in his head, logical and sure, and that's it, that's his fucking _Nobel_ right there. He scribbles it all down on paper just to be sure, lets it all flow from his hand in neat, black-ink loops of signs and symbols, checks and double-checks, but it all holds true, and he waves the page in John's face when he passes through the living room on his way to conference call Radek and Sam and maybe even that jackass Kavanagh, just to gloat.

"That's nice, Rodney," John says absently. He's curled up in his favourite, battered old armchair, nose buried in one of those fat airport thrillers that seem to breed in this house, and it's typical that he doesn't even look up when faced with _ground-breaking scientific advancement_.

"You," Rodney tells John, "are not sufficiently appreciative of the fact that you are living with a genius"; but his grin is wide enough to split open the sky, there's no accusation in his tone, only joy, and he drops his paper, reaches out to fist his hands in John's shirt and drags him close enough to kiss. John laughs, startled, against his mouth, but kisses him back fiercely and strokes his back, questioning nothing but murmuring "yeah, yeah" when Rodney says "I did it, I did it," over and over.

_v. how your mouth smiles, light as the water of the spring upon the pure stones, like this I love you, beloved._

John is beautiful. Rodney forgets that, sometimes; his familiarity with John's moods, with the ratty, worn boxers he wears when slouching around the house, with his tendency to dribble milk down his chin when eating cereal, can blur his sight occasionally, as if John is a miracle seen too closely. Sometimes he forgets, but never for long; because whenever he looks up and sees John, catches a glimpse of him from the corner of his eye—the arch of his spine, the loose sprawl of his limbs, the bright, sharp-etched curve of his smile—remembrance is like a body-blow, want a thrumming constant in his blood, and it feels like his whole self is crying out, every nerve sparking with _John, John, John_. At times like those, it's all he can do not to say something, tell someone, laugh out loud, reach out and grab John and bury his face in John's neck; this time, he just smiles, reaches out across the kitchen counter where John is roughly chopping vegetables for a stir fry—looking ordinary, every-day and rumpled, beautiful—and kisses him, careful and delicate and slow. When he pulls away, there's a flush heating the high points of John's cheekbones, and his breath's coming just that little bit faster. Rodney snags a bit of green pepper from the chopping board and pops it in his mouth. "Hey," he says and grins, unrepentant.


End file.
